Has the Produce Industry Killed the MDP for good? What do you say Mr. President?

USDA Microbiol. Data Prog (MDP) was ordered to cease testing this week; what happens to produce safety in US?

I guess the president – despite winning the election – did not read my earlier post:

According to Food Safety News: After an uptick in press coverage on the impending shutdown of the Microbiological Data Program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to keep the produce testing program running, at least through the end of the year.

As Food Safety News reported last week, if the program were to shut down, as it was slated to at the end of this month, public testing for pathogens such as E. coli, Listeria and Salmonella on commodities like tomatoes, lettuce and cantaloupes would drop by 80 percent.

“While the Microbiological Data Program does not align with USDA’s core mission, the department will continue its work with state partners using existing agreements to conduct sampling and testing through this program through the end of the year,” a spokesman told Food Safety News late Monday night.

President Obama, you probably do not remember my three daughters, Morgan, Olivia and Sydney, hanging out with Sasha and Malia and Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers backstage before one of the inaugural parties, but $50,000 out of my pocket does. As you might remember, I went all in for your 2008 campaign, and judging by the calls and emails that I get on a daily basis from your campaign, you want me to do it again.

Within a few months of taking office, you came face to face with what I have seen for decades – another multi-state foodborne illness outbreak. The now infamous Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella tragedy sickened several hundred throughout the United States and killed nine. I thought you got it when you were quoted as saying:

“That’s what Sasha eats for lunch probably three times a week. And you know, I don’t wanna have to worry about whether she’s gonna get sick as a consequence to having her lunch.”

True, that outbreak – and several others in proceeding years – prompted Congressional action on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) – that you very, very quietly signed into law. However, the law still remains unfunded and many of the food safety rules remain hidden away in the your White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

And, now because of industry pressure, your administration wants to kill the $4.5M budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Microbiological Data Program (MDP). Ironically, to this long time democratic supporter, the program was launched under President Bush’s 2001 Food Safety Initiative, and until the end of July tested about 15,000 samples of fruits and vegetables each year, far more than any other federal or state program.

The samples are collected from distribution centers in 11 states that represent about 50 percent of the United States population. Any isolated pathogens are sent for pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) testing and the resulting genetic pattern is uploaded to the Centers for Disease Control PulseNet database so that it can be matched against human isolates or outbreak patterns. MDP also tests all isolates for antimicrobial resistance and contributes data to the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring (NARMS) database.

From 2009 to 2012, MDP found Salmonella 100 times, E. coli O157:H7 twice, and Listeria monocytogenes 8 times. Over the same time period, the program sparked 23 Salmonella recalls, two E. coli O157:H7 recalls, and five Listeria recalls. Of the pathogens the program identified during that time, 39 Salmonella isolates were matched to human illnesses – as were the two E. coli O157:H7 and all eight Listeria isolates.

In your budget request for FY 2013, your administration justified cutting MDP, calling it a “lower-priority program because it is has a low impact and is not central to the core mission of USDA, which is to facilitate the competitive and efficient marketing of agricultural products.”

Despite what industry lobbyists say to Congress and your Administration behind closed doors, I beg to differ. Here are just a few reasons to fully fund the MDP:

• MDP is the only robust sampling program we have. That surveillance data is irreplaceable and will be important for moving forward with FSMA produce safety rule. Having commodity-specific surveillance data can be used by growers to tailor preventative practices.

• MDP does sometimes spark recalls before their sell by or use by dates, which allows retailers to pull potentially contaminated product from shelves before consumers eat it. The $4.5 million program would be more than worth it even if it only prevented one case of E. coli O157:H7 caused acute kidney failure – hemolytic uremic syndrome – in a child.

• MDP has a sampling, testing, and reporting infrastructure in place and can rapidly deploy and begin sampling and testing for outbreak related commodities within a week. It gives health officials rapid response capability. Rapid is good for consumers and good for the industry. The faster we know what is causing an outbreak, the faster we can alert consumers and the faster the impact can be minimized to industry.

As many states cut their public health budgets, MDP gives states resources to help build better microbiological labs. When the program was first launched in 2001, many labs were using antiquated methods. MDP introduced the labs to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and currently real time PCR. With the help of USDA funding, MDP labs are currently state of the art and each is ISO 17025 accredited. By continually sampling throughout the year, MDP staffs are now proficient at testing and isolation of pathogens. This is more art than science and is a skill that is developed not acquired. Given how fast microbiology is evolving, the state labs will not be able to afford to keep up with instrumentation and they will likely be back in the dark ages within a few short years.

Though there has been talk about moving produce testing to FDA (after it has been killed) – your administration argues that the program is being cut because it does not belong at USDA. While I agree that the program is a better fit under FDA’s mission, MDP actually saves taxpayers money by being within USDA because it shares resources, staff, and infrastructure with its sister program, the Pesticide Data Program (PDP).

So, President Obama, father to father, democrat to democrat, do the right thing and fund the MDP. It will be good for your kids and mine, and it will not make me wish I had gone all in for Bush.